Sour DOW/NASDAQ to kill digital future?

What keeps SACD from wide market acceptance is that it is not, to the eyes and ears of most consumers, a fundamental advance over CD. D was, in it's ease of use and noiselessness. But SACD is merely a premium audiophile upgrade to CD, therefore the vast majority do not see the need to buy more expensive soft+hardware.
However, if the deep pockets of audiophiles and thei disposable income is necessary for the continuation of SACD, then perhaps the market slowdown will have an effect. I don't ever expect SACDs to be any more widespread than Krell amplifiers, say.

It's possible that the real impact will be felt on the software side. Soft sales figures may discourage record companies from investing the extra resources required to produce multiple formats. That will mean fewer titles in the new formats, and therefore less reason for consumers to adopt those formats. The effect should be temporary, though we don't know yet how long "temporary" will last. And, it should be remembered, when it comes to predicting the economic future, nobody knows anything.

SACD has more advantages than just better sound.

1. It has multichannel option. CD's don't.

2. It has a video option. CD's don't. Right now, SACD's don't either, but could.

3. Hybrid discs are downward compatible to CD players. DVD-A is not. Sony even states that the CD layer is superior to normal CDs.

4. Has copy protection. The record companies like this. CDs don't have this.

5. Has copy protection that does not affect the sound. DVD-A can't say the same.

6. Does not require a DVD player and TV to play.

7. About 20 minutes longer play than CDs is possible. One current SACD is 87 minutes long, but futre SACD theoretically could exceed 100 minutes.

8. SACD equipment is far cheaper than buying a TT, cartridge, and pre-preamp. It'll take a $10K setup to get in the ballpark with a $1,500 S9000ES CD/DVD/SACD player.

9. SACD equipment is far cheaper than buying a top notch CD transport and DAC.

Thanks, Tommart, for the information. I stand somewhat corrected about the technical advance of SACD, however, I was speaking about the general public's possible unwillingness to finance a change of format..prices have to come down and down fast. If anyone can pull it off, it will be Sony.
I did listen to the multichannel SACD demo at Montreal and was extremely impressed with the sound.

I may have mis-understood this but I was told that the patent that Sony/Phillips have on Cd's is up in 2002. For that reason they will be pushing this hot and heavy so they can reap the money for another 20 years? Hope it works.